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The Dodgers are among several major-league teams that have expressed an interest in free-agent pitcher Suk-Min Yoon, a source told the L.A. News Group on Wednesday.

Multiple teams have recently reached out to Yoon’s agent, Scott Boras. The Baltimore Sun reported today that the Orioles are one of “several” teams that have extended an offer. It’s unknown if the Dodgers are in that group, or how competitive their offer is.

The Orioles and Texas Rangers are reportedly the front-runners for the 27-year-old right hander. Both teams have starting rotation vacancies to fill, and Yoon has told reporters that he prefers to start.

Yoon is a three-time KBO All Star and 2011 MVP who starred in the 2009 World Baseball Classic for Korea. He announced his intention to pursue a major-league contract after going 3-6 with a 4.00 earned-run average for the Kia Tigers in 2013.

Yoon missed the beginning of the year with a shoulder injury and split the season between the bullpen and the rotation. According to the Korea Times, Yoon throws a “solid” slider among four pitches. He is the consensus best pitcher in Korea, after Hyun-Jin Ryu signed with the Dodgers in December 2012 and posted a strong rookie season.

With Josh Beckett expected to be healthy from the start of camp, the Dodgers appear to have a set five-man rotation already. Beckett missed most of last season with thoracic outlet syndrome. Right-hander Chad Billingsley is expected to return from Tommy John surgery as early as June and give the Dodgers six proven starters.

In addition to Yoon, the Dodgers have also had conversations with starter Bronson Arroyo.

Before the famous economist/statistician/sabrmetrician Nate Silver was chosen as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2009, he crunched baseball stats for BaseballProspectus.com. He found more success in the political arena by taking an old idea and adapting it to a new subject.

Specifically, Silver aggregated just about every pre-election poll he could find, giving each one more or less weight through a formula he devised, to come up with a reliably accurate “prediction model” for the major U.S. elections.

With a nod to Nate, I decided to aggregate four recently released lists ranking the Dodgers prospects — Baseball America, FanGraphs, Minor League Ball and Baseball Prospectus — into a composite ranking. There’s no weighting formula and this is no prediction model. (Besides, success in baseball can’t be defined objectively; if it were, there wouldn’t be so many damn stats). So while Yasiel Puig is listed first in the table you’re about to read, I can’t tell you what that actually means for his long-term baseball success. I can only promise he will not be elected president of the United States.

Participants in the community caravan will try to avoid contracting dysentery (if you understand the above photo, this joke will make perfect sense).

Today’s also the final day for season ticket holders to visit Dodger Stadium for Select-A-Seat. Individual game tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10 a.m., coinciding with the FanFest in Lot 6 from 11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and will feature appearances and autographs with Kershaw, Ethier, Zack Greinke and Matt Kemp. FanFest gates open at 11 a.m. for the general public and at 10:30 a.m. for Dodger season ticket holders with their MVP cards.

If it feels like the season is just around the corner, it is. Pitchers and catchers report Feb. 12.

That was one of many takeaways from yesterday’s news that the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable are on the verge of striking a local-cable rights pact that could be in the neighborhood of $8 billion.

Under the deal, colleague Tom Hoffarth reports, “TWC would be the anchor of this new Dodger channel and provide plenty of cross promotion with its own TWC SportsNet and Deportes channels created specifically for the Lakers. But as TWC found out, there was plenty of pushback from distributors when it launched its two-channel package in October leading up to the start of the Lakers season – mostly because of the high-end $3.95 price tag per subscriber per month. DirecTV, for example, didn’t get on board with it until the middle of November. Dish Network has yet to sign on.”

Even if you don’t care for the Lakers, you probably know someone who does and had to sweat through the TWC SportsNet launch last fall. If that was you, are you ready for the same song-and-dance with the Dodgers next year?

Would you rather see the $8 billion price tag come down? Or are you happy that your owners might turn an approximate $6 billion profit less than one year after buying the team, knowing that might mean more flexibility to add payroll and upgrade Dodger Stadium?

The fan, Thomas Nagano, claims that he was charged for 24 ounces of beer but received less than that at Dodger Stadium when he attended a game this season. The video, which had about 500 views on YouTube when I checked it out this morning, explains the mix-up fairly clearly:

Nagano has already taken up his case with the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs. An isolated incident, or a sudsy scam on a seismic scale? Feel free to add your comment below.

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